


Wait for the sound to swallow me whole

by griffonskies



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt Shiro (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Beta Read, Slice of Life, Voltron Lions as Cats, Witch AU, Witch Lance (Voltron), Witch Shiro (Voltron), ish, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 19:05:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18146192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/griffonskies/pseuds/griffonskies
Summary: Lance looked up from the fireplace and to the window, his eyes lighting up. He knew this silence. The silence that fell upon the world like a warm, heavy blanket. It hushed the wind outside and the birds went soundless. The world holding its breath for a moment.Slice of life in the lives of a new Witch student Lance and his boyfriend Shiro.





	Wait for the sound to swallow me whole

**Author's Note:**

> For this months Shance Games prompt music + silence
> 
> ... and I ended up with a small fic that might just grow into something bigger... hopefully

Silence.

Lance looked up from the fireplace and to the window, his eyes lighting up. He knew this silence. The silence that fell upon the world like a warm, heavy blanket. It hushed the wind outside and the birds went soundless. The world holding its breath for a moment.

Lance’s Love carries a calm with him. In much the same way a passing summer storm on the far off horizon blankets the world in anticipating stillness. In much the same way a snowfall hushes the forest it falls upon. A force of nature you can’t ignore. 

Red reached a paw from his lap and tapped at his lowered mug. Lance blinked at the shifting liquid in the mug, he frowned then looked at Red and nodded.

He got up from his chair and towards the door just as a knock sounded. He stepped down the little step dividing the living room area and the rest of his little cottage. He sidestepped chairs and low tables and book piles and opened the heavy wooden door.

Shiro stood calmly on the other side, twin colored gaze - one gold, one gray - falling in exactly the place he knew he’d find Lance’s eyes as the door opened. He just deeply, gently smiled at him, “Love, I’m home.”

“Welcome home,” said Lance, any questions were forgotten as affection overflowed in his chest and warmth spread into his smile. 

Shiro smiled wider and with more energy for a moment.

“Sorry...” he said gently, and tilted forward, losing consciousness.

Lance reached out, unsurprised, and caught Shiro, gently lowering both of them down to the wooden floor. “It’s okay, I’ve got you,” he whispered back, face hidden in silver locks.

Blue turned her head to look at them from her perch on the windowsill. She fluttered her ears back. Then forward. And chuffed at them, a sound almost too silent to hear. But Lance heard her and looked over, nose still hidden in silver hair and lips still pressed to Shiro’s forehead in a soft kiss.

“I know,” said Lance, then started getting up, taking Shiro’s prone form with him. “Can you get his usual medicine to the bedroom, please?”. He arranges and then haves until Shiro is securely on his back and starts walking towards the bedroom. Blue jumps off the windowsill on silent paws and gracefully waves between bottles and books.

The world lets the breath go, and sounds sharply fill the room. The wind picks up and the birds sing again.

* * *

Dawn comes up warm and bright. 

A sole sunbeam lazily strokes across the bed sheets until it lights up behind his eyelids. Lance wakes up and blinks at the calm morning. He raises slightly, careful as to not dislodge neither Blue or Black as they lay curled up in the space left between him and Shiro. 

Shiro is still asleep, breaths steady and deep, complexion healthier, less exhausted and no cress between the eyebrows.

A night with no nightmares was always a win. 

Lance gets up, quiet as a breath, and rounds the king size bed to tuck the blankets and sheets better around Shiro. And then just as silently goes through the open doorway out of the bedroom and into the main room.

He stretches and yawns, opening one of the windows to let in the spring morning in, filling the room with cool air, soft light, birdsong and the smell of cherry blossoms. 

He’ll have to spend some time in the garden soon. 

He goes about his morning, exercising and cleaning and planning. He starts on breakfast. Eggs and salat from the garden, wild berries from the woods and fresh cultivated yogurt. He takes a few glass containers off the shelves, black labels and white letters declaring the contents within, lavender, camomille, birch. He opens one by one, scooping out the needed amount into a teapot. 

There's scraping on the table and he turns to see Yellow pushing one of the spice containers in his direction, then she sits back when deciding she’s got her point across and murs at him. 

Lance reaches out to card fingers through short fur, “Thanks, girl.”

The cast iron kettle in the fireplace starts whistling. Lance takes a cloth to seize the hot handle and pours the water in the teapot. He takes down a jar of dark gold honey and puts a spoonful in both mugs. 

The lid slides snugly into the shoulders of the clay teapot and you almost can't see the gap between. An Asian dragons head is cushioned on its short spout, the rest of its body wraps around the round body of the pot. The teapot and its, equally beautifully crafted, mug set were a gift from Shiro’s great-grandmother form when Lance decided he wanted to learn about his magical heritage.  
(“Gran, you do know that we are not getting married…” “Hmm, so you say. I’m just preemptively giving you gifts.” Then she said something in Japanese Lance had no chance of following but Shiro blushed hard at, “Gran!”)

He puts everything on a tray and then hesitates. He turns to his medicine cabinet - a former wooden, key box that was stained dark grey with a red cross in the middle, clear quartz and an amethyst hanging from the handle - and pulls out a white container with a black cat sticker on it. He unscrews the lid and takes a sniff, wrinkles his nose but doesn’t put it back, he also takes a fresh pack of bandages then puts all that on the tray.

He takes it all to the bedroom and finds Shiro sitting up in bed, left hand around Black and Blue purring in his lap. His shoulders and right hand are covered with one of the rainbow-colored woolen throws that’s usually thrown on the back of the nearby chair. It’s Lance’s favorite when he has to get up early on chilly mornings.

Shiro looks up as he walks in, expression weary but eyes bright when he sees Lance. 

“Morning,” says Lance as he puts the tray on the nightstand, “How you feeling?”

Shiro reaches out gently and takes one of Lance’s hands closest to him. He brings it closer to kiss at the back, then at the palm, “Still a bit tired, but good.” 

Lance reaches out with the same hand to stroke at Shiro’s cheek. “Good.”

Lance then pulls back, taking the teapot and a small strainer and pours the tea. He lets it sit before stirring in the honey.

He takes one of the mugs and hands it to Shiro. “After you finish we’ll have to change the bandages on your arm.”

Shiro looks from him to his right arm, and frowns at it but just nods to Lance and start drinking his tea. Then shivers at the taste of it.

“Lance...” he whines.

“Don’t whine, you know that if I make it sweeter it’ll make the whole point of the tea moot.”

Shiro looks away and mutters into his tea, “... at least it would be palpable then.”

* * *

Lance is kneeling in the grass around his raised garden beds, carefully carding fingers through the strawberry patches on a bright, lively, morning. He picks a few of the ripe fruits and puts them in a small basket near him, the strawberries almost falling right out of the overflowing basket. 

Lance huffs at himself for not bringing a bigger basket with him. He turns to his other side and takes a pen he put behind his ears and writes in the open notebook on the ground. He frowns at the notebook then, scribbling out a line and sitting back on his hunches, taking the notebook with him and raising it closer to his face and writing another, more forceful, line down.

Blue paws her way through the strawberry patch, carrying a snail in her mouth. She jumps from the flowerbed, under the fence and puts the snail down in the lush green grass outside the garden. Yellow jumps from her position atop of the fence, and lands on Blue wanting to playfight. The two tumble around and bump into Green and the fight escalates into one big squabble of rolling fur.

Lance watches them in amusement as the first notes of music reach his ears. A slow, bright piano melody carried on the morning breeze. It passes the cottage open doors, over the terrace, into the garden and passes the bushes and flowers and garden beds. All the way to Lance the music vent. Reaching farther than any normal sound could. Filled with magic, slowly cracking the air with energy and flowing like a wave. The world seems brighter, the air clearer and the flowers pop with almost neon color against the green background. A plant bud inches it’s way out of the earth and sways in answer to the melody.

He smiles and continues with his work, placing sigil adorned stones between the sages and the marigolds.

Lance makes his rounds around the garden, all the while accompanied by music. 

When he’s finally done, he takes off his garden gloves, wipes his brow, takes the tool and strawberry basket in each hand, notebook under one arm and pen securely back behind one ear, and brings it all inside through the open door. 

Shiro is sitting at the old, old piano placed in a corner of the living room. It’s been a few days since he’d come, crashing right into Lance’s arms, magically and spiritually exhausted. 

He’s playing slowly with his left hand, his right secured in a sling as to not move while it’s recuperating. Black and Red are on the other side of the piano, gracefully playing the deeper keys in tandem with Shiro’s melody. 

Lance puts the tools away, then makes an empty spot on the kitchen counter for the berries, pushing a pile of books and notes aside. He then cleans up in the sink, a gentle breeze ruffles his bangs from the open row of windows right above the kitchen counters.

There’s a steaming teapot on the dining table right behind him. It’s still perfectly warm and steeped, even though it must have been waiting for a while now. He takes his favorite mug of a shelf - a big, white mug with the words “basic witch” written in thin, big letters on one side, and a black witches hat hanging off the “w”. 

There’s a magic circle, drawn in thick black ink on a piece of paper, under the teapot, keeping its contents fresh. Lance looks at it, then tilts his head to look from a different angle, but it makes no difference. He recognizes some of the symbols but the rest he hasn't seen in any of his books yet. He takes the paper and tucks it into his notebook for later study. 

Then he turns and goes to sit on the piano bench beside Shiro. Black jumps off the piano to lay in his lap, curling up into a giant ball of fluff, neither ears or tail-end visible. Red plays a little more but then jumps over the keys, over Shiro’s hand and onto the floor and out the door. 

Only Shiro is still on the piano. Still playing a slow happy tune.

Lance knows there’s some form of magic involved. He can feel the power of it in every note, and the energy in the rhythm. So he sits for a while and just listens.

But in the end, he sighs, “There’s so much I don’t know yet.”, he looks over the open room, seeing all the books and texts and scrolls he has read… and all those he has yet to even open. “I know I came here to Spain to learn from my grandmother but… it feels so endless...”

Shiro stops playing, the last few notes play on and slowly fade away, and then there is the familiar, comforting silence again. The companionship that doesn’t need words. Shiro looks around them and sees the endless books and scripts - some form Lance’s family and some form Shiro’s - but, he also sees the finished potions, sigils and power circles on scattered papers, crystals and runes powered and well kept. 

Shiro feels the energy, the power, the aura flowing in the cottage. The subtle kind of energy Lance doesn’t have the feeling for just yet… but will soon.

“You’ve already learned more in half a year than others do in a lifetime. You’re doing fantastic for being so new to this,” Lance blushes, raising his cup to hide his face, and Shiro smiles, putting his hand around the other's shoulders and kissing his temple, “So have patience. You’ll get there.”


End file.
